- #1
One of those rare QT with actual character and relationship development from arc to arc, instead of just self-contained HE.MC starts as a 10, 000 year old monster from a cultivation world. He build himself up from less than nothing to the top of the world.Even though he gets together with ML starting from the first world, he treats the relationship very casually. It's a passing interest for him. But as the world's progress, especially after the zombie apocalypse world, he actually starts having real feelings and his behavior towards ML changes.ML also develops from world to world. In the first few worlds he slowly gets more and more obsessed with MC acting as Mac's faithful dog. But then mysterious things in the background combined, perhaps, with ML being more vulnerable and okay showing his personality flaws, causes him to be less obedient, less perfect, less stable.Aside from the romance, MC also develops as a person. His personality is and remains petty, sadistic, and arrogant. However, in early worlds you can see he doesn't bother to play his "role" or worry about the original body's personality. He does destroy enemies of his host body but purely out of self interest. As ML worms his way into his heart, and MC starts having more positive life experiences, not only with MC but also random NPCs and even a relationship with how he views society at large, he becomes more compassionate. He starts treating his "role" seriously, wanting to take revenge on people in intensely personal ways I stead of just destroying obstacles in a straightforward manner.I really enjoy this story and both MC and ML.Other reviewers have mentioned MC being abusive towards ML. I found in the vast majority of cases, he was responding to abusive things the ML did before "remembering him" (not actual memories but before he fell in love/realized his identity on a subconscious level.) There are some times when MC is unreasonably petty, he is definitely a very petty person. But tends not to be super overboard for the most part. MC has a balance in realizing ML is the same person in each world but also since ML has no memories from previous worlds also treating him logically due to the circumstances. However, in later worlds (particularly arc 9, the music themed modern setting) he starts treating him less and less as his role, more "unreasonably" for his current character and situation, as he clearly grows more possessive of the ML due to having deeper feelings.MC definitely is nowhere near as bad as many ML, I think readers are just not used to seeing any kind of ambiguous treatment from the uke/shou towards the seme/gong. People are very desensitized to the reverse and will even excuse violent assault and r*pe towards bottoms, but if a bottom is even a little more overbearing towards their top people are more critical. (In both straight and gay media.) In any case, this is definitely worth a read and I am looking forward to how the background plot gets resolved.